Shot in the arm for Telemundo

NBCUniversal is making a push to improve 17 of its Telemundo stations, primarily by bolstering local news service. The idea is to increase their competitiveness in their individual markets.

“The Telemundo Station Group is ushering in a new era of Spanish-language local news,” said Manuel Martinez, President, Telemundo Station Group. “The investment made at our local Telemundo stations, including launching new newscasts, arming our journalists with the best newsgathering tools and adding consumer units charged with fighting for our viewers, speaks clearly about our commitment to better serve our country’s flourishing Hispanic community.”

“We want to be at the forefront of delivering Hispanic-Americans all across the United States the local news, weather and information they want,” said Valari Staab, President, NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations. “The strategic investment made at our local Telemundo stations have helped them achieve new levels of success as they provide the high-quality local news and information that Spanish-language viewers have been asking for and deserve.”

Among the moves:
* Adding a half hour of early evening news
* Adding four new stations – KVDA in San Antonio TX, KTLM in Harlingen TX, WNEU in Boston MA and WWSI in Philadelphi
* Adding 160 employees across the 17 stations
* Adding news bureaus in Washington, D.C., Mexico City and Miami, each with correspondents gathering news for the local stations.
* Investing in new equipment
* Adding a digital editor at each station

There will be many more steps to the upgrade, including many that will be station-specific.

RBR-TVBR observation: In an increasingly digital world a key broadcast strength is localism. We believe a key to survival is to jealously guard and continue to own local content.

At the same time, it will be increasingly important to compete in the digital universe as well as OTA.
We applaud NBCUniversal and Telemundo for taking both of these elements into account when devising their new plan.